The Japanese government has ordered the Chubu Electric Power Co. to close its Hamaoko Nuclear Power Plant, which is located in Shizuoka Prefecture, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) southwest of Tokyo. The plant has been at the centre of long-running protests and safety warnings from experts.

Professor Katushiko Ishibashi, who served on the Japanese government’s panel on the safety of nuclear reactors, has described Hamaoko as the most dangerous nuclear plant in the world.

Hamaoko is an old plant that was built to withstand an 8.5 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami of 8 metres. It stands on two major fault lines close to the sea. Fukushima was hit by a magnitude 9 quake and a 14-15 metre tsunami (40-45 feet). Seismologists have predicted that there is an 87 percent chance that the area around Hamaoko will be hit by a major earthquake in the next 30 years.

If a radiation leak were to occur at Hamaoko, as it has done at Fukushima, the entire population of Tokyo—some 28 million people—would have to be evacuated. A further 2.5 million commute daily into the city from surrounding areas. More than 30 million people would lose their homes and livelihoods in the event of a nuclear incident at Hamaoko.

The repercussions would reach far beyond the Tokyo area and beyond Japan. As one of the three major financial centres of the world, along with London and New York, an evacuation of Tokyo would have a devastating impact on the entire global economy. Major banks and financial institutions and the stock exchange would be disrupted.

Scary stuff. Its precisely this kind of trigger which could end the bumpy plateau we are currently on._________________Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction